RE: [xliff] RE: more comments on the DTD

["Eric D. Friedman" <eric@etranslate.com>]

On Fri, 25 Jan 2002, Yves Savourel wrote:

> >>>>It is strongly recommended to use
> >>>>xml:lang for <source> and <target> as well, so any XML tools (not
> >>>>just XLIFF tools) can be language-aware.
> >>
> >>>Why not make this required?  Are there any applications that would
> >>>be harmed by always having an xml:lang attribute specified on
> >>>source/target elements?  I argue that the converse is true and so
> >>>would like to see xml:lang be a required attribute.
> >>
> >>I think we didn't make required because you could avoid to have it
> >>for one of the two language in the document by specifying the xml:lang
> >>at the <xliff> level and it would be redundand.
> >
> >Then, in the interest of simplification, let's not have it present on
> ><source> and <target> at all and require it to be present at the
> ><xliff> level.
>
> We cannot do that :) We can have only one xml:lang in <xliff>, and we have
> two languages to identify: one for <source> and one for <target>.

OK, that makes sense.  Then let's have the xml:lang on xliff be the
language of the xliff document itself and >require< xml:lang on source/target
elements.

My goal here is to make it as easy as possible to read an XLIFF document,
no matter who writes it.  Optional (but significant!) markup is at odds
with that goal.

Eric